The overpopulation of deer in suburban areas can become a particularly dangerous situation
when it comes to vehicular accidents. The most commonly proposed solution to this problem
is hunting deer to thin out the population. But is hunting really an effective method
of controlling deer populations? Without of hunting, would we be completely overrun by
a new mutant breed of deer overlords? Let’s find out!
Hi it's Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. Today's video is
going to be the first in a series addressing common myths about hunting. With the deer-hunting
season upon us, at least here in North America, I thought it would be appropriate to start
with the so often-cited argument that deer hunting is necessary to keep
their population in check.
First off, something important to note is that when speaking about out-of-control deer
populations, state wildlife management agencies will rarely use the term "overpopulated,"
opting instead for "overabundant." To understand this carefully calculated word choice, let's
take a closer look at the terminology.
Overpopulation means a population has exceeded it's biological carrying capacity, which,
by definition is the maximum number of individuals of a species that can exist in a habitat indefinitely
without threatening other species in that habitat. This is determined by limiting factors
such as available, food, water, shelter, and prey to predator ratios.
When a species exceeds its biological carrying capacity, it is officially overpopulated.
In contrast, "overabundant," the term hunting advocates use for deer populations, means...
nothing.
It's not a scientific term and it has no fixed definition. It's simply a way to make it sound
like we're going to be overrun by deer any minute now.
No I…I think we're okay.
In reality, if deer did overpopulate a given area, this incredibly powerful force called
nature would step in to regulate. Trust me, this nature thing's been handling things like
this for a while now.
The problem of deer overpopulation only happens when humans interfere with nature. This is
the most perverse element of the "we need hunters to control the deer population" argument:
deer populations become excessive because of hunting- the proposed solution is the source
of the problem.
So, just how does hunting increase deer populations? There are two main ways. The first is orchestrated
by state wildlife management agencies and the second is a direct effect of hunting practices.
Wildlife agencies, like state Department of Natural Resources here in the US, make some
or all of their money from selling hunting licenses. Many of their mission statements
explicitly state their responsibility to provide hunting opportunities. One of the ways they
can increase these opportunities and thus increase hunting license revenue, is by clear-cutting
forested areas to create habitat ideal for dear. The Virginia Department of Game and
Inland Fisheries, for example, recommends clearing multiple areas, each three acres
in size, a practice, which not only significantly increases deer populations, but is also environmentally
damaging.
Ned Caveney, a Department of Natural Resources state forester in Michigan stated in the North
Woods Call newspaper, “We manipulate forest habitat to produce amazingly unnatural deer
numbers --- up to two million of the critters some years. That probably approaches two million
more than existed before man got into the act."
You’d think a Department of Natural Resources would be concerned with preserving and protecting
natural resources, right? What a preposterous thing to think. To these agencies deer are
seen as a resource. Not as animals deserving protection and certainly not as sentient beings.
They are financial resources to be exploited for the sole purpose of being killed for sport
at a profit.
Even the terminology used by these agencies equates these sentient being with plants and
views them as pure statistic. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources stated in
its annual report: "We rank first in the country for the highest single year deer harvest on
record and are number one for deer harvest over the past decade. All of us work hard
to keep it that way."
Vegan activist Gary Yourofsky in his own article on hunting states that “Everyone must understand
that wildlife management is an illusory concept created around 100 years ago. There is no
such thing as wildlife management. Humans cannot manage nature. The only managing humans
should be doing is managing to stay out of the animals' space.”
Now moving on to the second source of artificially overabundant deer populations: the practices
of hunters themselves. Conventional deer hunting is all about killing mature male deer, or
bucks, with large antlers, leaving the female deer, or does, alone. A single buck can breed
with multiple does, so while hunting reduces the number of male deer it does not reduce
the number of offspring. In fact, it increases it. This sex-biased hunting skews the natural
1:1 ratio of male and female deer to as high as 1:8, meaning one male fore every eight
females.
Let’s say that an area has 500 deer and each doe produces approximately of 1.4 fawns,
as 67% of mature does have twins. In a natural 1:1 ratio, this would yield 350 new fawns.
Now, take that same 500 deer heard at the hunting-induced 1:8 ratio and you now have
622 new fawns, almost 300 more than the 1:1 herd produced.
Simply put, hunting deer creates more deer.
Now I’d be remiss if I didn’t reiterate what I said in my video about “what would
happen if the world went vegan tomorrow.” You see, creating an artificially high population
of deer and then stepping in to say you have to hunt to take care of this out-of-control
deer population is like farting in a cosed room all day and then saying “thank god
I’m here to open a window otherwise we’d be overtaken by this smell.” In both cases,
if humans hadn’t stunk it up in the first place, there wouldn't be any problem to resolve.
Now be sure to check out the blog post for this video linked here and in the video description
for more resources on this topic. And stay tuned to the Bite Size Vegan channel for future
videos covering common hunting myths. Let me know your thoughts on the deer overpopulation
issue in the comments below. Be sure to give the video a thumbs up if you liked it and
please share it around to bust this myth. If you like what you heard and want to support
messages like this, join us in the Nugget Army on Patreon to help keep Bite Size Vegan
educating. If you’re new to the channel, be sure to hit that big red subscribe button
down there for more awesome vegan content every Monday and Wednesday and some Fridays.
Now go live vegan and I’ll see you soon.
[sniffs] Oh, Ooby!
That one was not...
human created....